


The Cat-King's Guest

by onethingconstant



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: And they end up hugging and crying because it's me okay, Bucky's Kitten, But only because he was so worried, Cats, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Political Intrigue, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre- and Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron, Pre-Ant-Man Credit Scene, Recovering!Bucky, Steve wants to punch Bucky, Tea, Wakanda, Where Has Bucky Been For Two Years, lindy hop, pre-Civil War, sorry no sex scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-17 11:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4665105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onethingconstant/pseuds/onethingconstant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes wakes up in a hospital with no idea where he is or how he got there. A new player in the MCU explains the new reality to him: he'll be safe and cared for as long as he doesn't try to leave Wakanda ... or contact Steve Rogers. As Bucky recovers from his decades as Hydra's puppet, he gets to know his mysterious host and the reclusive country that has taken the Winter Soldier in. The one thing he can't seem to find out is what King T'Challa actually wants with him.</p><p>All is seldom as it seems where the Black Panther is involved.</p><p>Also known as my answer to the question, "How the hell has Bucky been hiding from Steve for two years and how did he end up in that vise?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Safe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aceofhearts88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofhearts88/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Family](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4629723) by [aceofhearts88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofhearts88/pseuds/aceofhearts88). 



> So this is a bit of a story.
> 
> A few days ago, I had a REALLY tough day involving family drama and other badness. I asked my Tumblr followers to post nice things in my inbox or comment on my AO3 to counter my evil head-voices. Well, aceofhearts88 went above and beyond—she actually wrote me a delightful little drabble fic thing, based on a loose conversation we'd been having in which she repeatedly referred to T'Challa as "Bucky's Kitten". The fic presented T'Challa as showing up during an Avengers mission and giving the Avengers a hand, apparently because of a prior relationship with Bucky. Which got me wondering how such a famously machiavellian character, the undisputed king of the poker face and Marvel's original cool customer, ended up with an emotional connection to an amnesiac former assassin. The resulting speculation also connected to my own theory about T'Challa's role in Civil War and how Bucky ended up in the vise in the Ant-Man credit scene.
> 
> I wrote the first chapter in about a day. I expect the second half will follow before the week is out.
> 
> Can I just say T'Challa is simultaneously a massive pain in the ass and incredibly fun to write?
> 
> (This work is a.k.a. Bucky's Kitten: The Origin Story. No continuity with Winter Soldier Diaries, Agent Carter and the Left-Hand Man, or anything really.)

"Mister Barnes?"

He wakes slowly, as if he's washed ashore on a distant beach somewhere. Waves of cool sleep roll over the top of him, offering to drag him back under for a while. He licks his cracked lips with a thickly coated tongue. He's vaguely aware of being thirsty.

"Mister Barnes."

 _No, no. Nobody home. Gave at the office._ He lets his head loll to one side, away from the voice (deep, resonant, with an unfamiliar accent), doesn't bother to open his eyes. _Go back to sleep._

"Sergeant."

That's dirty pool. He's not a sergeant anymore, hasn't been a sergeant since _oh God don't think about it don't go there it's nothing but pain_ , but something in the word _sergeant_ bypasses his bruised and scorched brain and goes right to his spine. It stiffens, involuntarily, like he's trying to come to attention.

He doesn't want to wake up, doesn't want to stand or salute or fight for anything ... anybody ... why won't they just let him sleep ...?

He's so tired. He's just so tired.

"Sergeant. I know you can hear me. You are being quite rude."

Rude. That's a laugh. The voice is calling _him_ rude, when all he is is drugged and sleepy and helpless and exhausted and probably tied to a table, he's _always_ tied down ...

He moves slightly, twists his human wrist.

No pressure. No friction.

No _cuffs_.

He's not tied down. He tries to remember the last time he woke up somewhere strange and he wasn't tied down. He can't. He has to be tied down. He _needs_ to be restrained, are these people _crazy_ , don't they know what he _does_ , what he _is_ ...

He loses the thread for a while and drifts, half-slipping back into the warm ocean of slumber. Vaguely, he's aware of people moving around him, touching him. As always, he lets himself stay still and pliant. Play along. Be whatever they want him to be—a machine, a specimen, a soulless little doll. It hurts less when he lets them have their way. And he's too sleepy to do much besides lie there, passive, and feel.

They lift his right hand, press his pulse point. Shift his legs—and yes, that's a catheter; well, at least he's used to those. They open his mouth, check his teeth and lift his tongue. There are cold, sticky sensors on his chest, on his forehead. The hospital gown is soft, at least, almost silky. Not scratchy cotton, so he's not in an American or European hospital. There's a warm, fluffy blanket covering him most of the time, from feet to collarbones. It disappears occasionally, and _things_ happen with the sensors, but ... nothing hurts. No scalpels or saws. No crackle of electricity.

Aside from the awkwardness of the cath and the slightly uncomfortable pinch of an IV needle whenever somebody moves his right arm, absolutely nothing is hurting him.

Weird.

He wonders, vaguely, who has him now. Even in a drugged haze, he's pretty sure it's not Hydra. There would be pain with them. And the gown and blanket are too nice for a government facility— _any_ government. But who's stupid enough to leave him unrestrained, even doped to the gills as he is?

 _Maybe it's Steve_ , the wildly unrealistic part of him whispers excitedly. _Maybe he found me._ And yeah, Steve would be dumb enough not to lock him down, to think the drugs— _which feel pretty damn nice, by the way, hell of a vacation_ —are enough to hold him. But there are too many people around him for this to be all Steve. These are doctors, nurses, people who smell like antiseptic and latex gloves. They don't take chances with people like him. He's woken up in a couple of local psych wards since the Potomac. He _knows_.

Then who?

He drifts again, sinks, and spirals slowly into the depths for a while. Then, gradually, he starts rising, meanders into a current, and finally washes up to the soft beep of a cardiac monitor.

The voice is back.

"Sergeant Barnes."

He twitches. Zola called him that. He remembers that now. _No no no no no ..._

"Time to wake up, Sergeant. Open your eyes."

 _Won't. No. You can't make me._

"You are safe. You have my word."

_Yeah? I don't listen to guys with needles, asshole. Nothin' doin'. No no no ..._

"Captain Rogers needs you."

_Dammit all to hell._

Some things are instinctive. He cracks an eye open.

The room is full of light and ... green? No. He blinks both eyes, shakes his head muzzily. Windows. He's looking at windows. And outside the windows is ...

A jungle. A very lush, very green jungle.

 _Definitely_ not an American hospital.

Bucky Barnes mumbles something that might be, "The hell?"

"Good afternoon," the voice says in his right ear. 

Bucky stiffens, tries to twist and scramble away from the speaker, and manages only to pinch himself on his IV needle and, it feels like, jostle the catheter _very_ unpleasantly. Oh, and make every muscle group in his body scream at him in protest.

He groans. It sounds like a door in an old haunted house.

There is a man sitting in the chair beside Bucky's hospital bed. Bucky can't help doing a snap assessment of him at first glance. _Six foot two or three, maybe two hundred and fifteen pounds, age twenty-eight to thirty-two, excellent childhood nutrition, expensive manicure, charcoal silk suit you could buy a car with, features and skin tone suggest sub-Saharan Africa, accent—_

_Accent—_

_Godammit, what the hell is that accent?_

_Oh, and he's carrying at least three concealed weapons. And he doesn't need 'em._

_Please, God, I know you hate me, but please ..._

_Don't let him be after Steve._

_I don't think I can take him without moving._

The man smiles pleasantly. "It would appear the morphine is wearing off."

Bucky snorts. As if morphine still worked on him, between decades building up a tolerance and _whatever_ Zola had shot him up with in Austria. The movement makes him wince.

"You will experience some discomfort, but it should let up once the real pain sets in."

Oh. It's going to be one of _those_ conversations. Bucky lets his face go slack. Best to give this sonofabitch nothing to work with.

The man chuckles. "Don't worry, Sergeant. As long as you are my guest, I will personally see to your comfort and wellbeing." 

_Oh, yeah,_ that _doesn't sound threatening_ at all ...

"However," the man continues, "I must ask a question as a matter of protocol. Do you believe yourself to be an immediate threat to the safety of those around you?"

Bucky screws up his face in an are-you-shitting-me expression.

The man in the suit gives him a perfect I-shit-you-not look right back.

"Right now?" Bucky croaks, lifts his right arm a couple of inches, and lets it drop like a lead weight. "No?"

The man gives him a small, diplomatic smile. "Very good. Please inform one of the attendants if you feel the urge to do violence. The royal medical corps are the most highly trained and skilled physicians in the world, and I would hate for them to come to harm as a result of your illness."

 _Illness._ That's one way to describe being a brain-damaged homicidal maniac slash murder machine.

"Why?" Bucky mumbles. "What'll they do?"

"Evacuate the building," the man says calmly, "and allow the Dora Milaje to take charge."

"The what now?"

"My personal guard," the man explains, leaning back in his chair and smiling very slightly wider. "Also, I suppose you might describe them as queens in waiting."

Bucky blinks at him, shakes his head, and, finding the situation no clearer than when he woke up, flops down in the bed with a grunt of total surrender.

"Yes," the man says dryly. "That's probably your wisest course of action."

"Who the _hell_ are you?" Bucky mutters.

"You may call me T'Challa," the man tells him. "In full, my title is T'Challa, son of T'Chaka, chief of the Panther Clan, King of Wakanda." He inclines his head slightly. "I also have a half-dozen other titles that would probably bore you. Oh, and a PhD from Oxford." There's a wry smile in the last sentence.

Bucky wheezes in fright.

He's pretty sure he's allergic to heads of state. _Especially_ royalty. Even before he killed so many of them, he was lousy at anything as formal as court protocol. He has fuzzy memories of meeting the King of England once, standing a couple of steps behind Steve and itching like crazy in his dress uniform. He might or might not have thrown up on a duke's shoes afterward.

He doesn't know whether the rule in his head is from Hydra or, well, _him_ , but it's clear: _Royalty: Do Not Touch_.

T'Challa arches an eyebrow at him as he fights to get his breathing under control. Bucky has no idea what his face looks like, but he's screaming on the inside.

Strangely enough, though, thinking about all the terrible things he might have done to King T'Challa or his country helps to calm Bucky down. Being the twentieth century's bloody-handed ghost is awful on a lot of levels, but it is, for him, pretty normal. He's been getting used to seeing faces on TV and in history books and having sudden, violent flashbacks. Almost everywhere he goes, there's a piece of a mission, some unresolved bit of murderous business. He hates being a monster, but at least he knows where he stands with corpses and festering grudges.

A wave of serenity washes over Bucky. He's been caught at last. He's going to be killed, obviously, but it will probably be quick and then it'll be _over_. No more running, no more nightmares, no more agonizing choices. 

Nothing left to be afraid of.

"C'n I ask a favor?" he whispers.

"Of course," T'Challa replies. "You are, as I have said, my guest."

"When I'm dead." Bucky swallows. "After, y'know ... could you call Steve Rogers and tell him? You don't have to give him the details or why or anything, just—just so he knows he doesn't have to look for me anymore."

There is a long, oddly poignant silence.

Then T'Challa says, "I beg your pardon?"

"You're gonna kill me, right?" Bucky's voice is calm and flat. "It's okay. I won't fight you. Just—he's my family, so he deserves to know."

After a pause, T'Challa asks:

"By any chance, has anyone ever told you you have a morbid imagination?"

Bucky just looks at him.

T'Challa's smile widens into something almost sad. "I have no intention of harming you, Sergeant. When my men picked you up in Karachi, you were unconscious and deathly ill. They had their chance to put a bullet in your head then, for the Winter Soldier's crimes against Wakanda. I ordered them to bring you here instead."

"Why?" Bucky whispers, not liking the sound of _crimes against Wakanda_ at all.

"Do you want the pleasant answer, or the honest one?"

"Honest," Bucky says immediately.

T'Challa nods. "You're more valuable to Wakanda alive than dead." 

A dozen horrible futures flip through Bucky's mind. Interrogation. Torture. Mind wipes. Of _course_ they've taken care of him, of _course_ they haven't hurt him, they want him in prime condition when they put him back into harness ...

"You're doing it again," T'Challa observes. "You _do_ like to panic, don't you?"

Bucky is suddenly aware that his heart monitor is beeping wildly.

"Let me explain your situation, fully and in detail," T'Challa says kindly. "There will be no need to panic or jump to conclusions until I have finished, at which point I will take questions, provided they're not too ridiculous. Do you understand?" He sounds like he's addressing a press conference, or perhaps a kindergarten classroom.

Bucky nods.

"Very well." T'Challa nods at the greenery outside the windows. "Today is Saturday, 26 July, 2014. You are in the secure ward of the Queen N'Yami Memorial Hospital in our capital city. It is the finest medical facility on earth, with the arguable exception of a few specialized clinics in Europe and North America. You have been unconscious for six days while the royal medical corps worked to stabilize your condition. Do you remember falling ill?"

Bucky shakes his head.

"That is hardly surprising. You were found on the floor of a warehouse in Karachi, unconscious and running a fever that would have resulted in brain damage to anyone not blessed with the super-soldier serum. Yes. We've read your file."

Bucky's face twists in disgust.

"I quite agree," T'Challa says blandly. "In any case, it appears you were suffering violent withdrawal from the drugs Hydra used to render you tractable. It seems you had been robbing pharmacies to obtain irregular doses. Is this correct?"

Bucky shrugs and nods grudgingly. He didn't want to dope himself up, but it was just so deeply ingrained in him to _take your medicine, be a good boy, we give you what you need, what would you do without us_ that he couldn't just quit cold turkey. He tried that in San Francisco for a day or two, and got so sick that he knocked over a CVS while hallucinating he was back in Austria. He took half the drugs in the place before he found his Hydra file online and laboriously worked out his dosages.

_Guess I couldn't find a CVS in Karachi._

"Quite so. In any case, the window for physical danger has now passed, although you will presumably suffer the psychological aftereffects of chemical addiction." 

"In other words," Bucky mutters, "Hydra made me a junkie."

"A treatable condition in Wakanda," T'Challa assures him. "Which brings me to the conditions of your stay here. You are, as I have said, my guest. This is not a personal matter—you are an official, if secret, guest of the royal house. It is my obligation to see that your needs are met and your health and security are never compromised while it is within my power to prevent it. And it is _your_ obligation to behave with dignity and respect for your host."

Bucky frowns and raises his shaky right hand.

T'Challa cocks an eyebrow at him. "This isn't a school, Sergeant. Do you need to visit the washroom?"

"No," Bucky mumbles, blushing. "I just—I've never been here before that I know of, and I—what happens when I screw up?"

"'Screw up'?" T'Challa repeats the words as if they leave a bad taste in his mouth.

"I, uh, mighta thrown up on a duke once," Bucky says into the blanket covering his chest.

T'Challa chuckles. It's a sound Bucky would expect to hear from a big cat, halfway between a coughing leopard and a purring cheetah. He wonders how he knows either of those noises.

"Allowances will be made for your illness and for the culture gap," T'Challa tells him. "There are only a few hard and fast rules, the most important of which is that you will be quartered in the palace and you may not leave the city without my express permission. Beyond that, stay out of any restricted areas, do no violence to anyone who does not offer it to you first, and obey any orders given to you from me or the Dora Milaje." 

Bucky nods slowly. House arrest, effectively. Not as bad as it could be. If the hospital is anything to go by, the rest of the city is probably a pretty comfortable place to be locked up.

"What do you want me to do?" he asks quietly. "In exchange, I mean."

"For now, your orders are to recover. You will have regular meetings with your doctors, including a qualified therapist specializing in severe trauma. We have a few engineers who will want to examine your prosthetic with an eye to adapting it—"

Bucky wheezes again.

"Calm down," T'Challa orders. "I can see that therapist will have her work cut out for her. No one is planning to duplicate you, Sergeant. Quite honestly, our prosthetic technology surpasses Hydra's in most areas, but there may be something to learn from your neural interfaces. The King T'Chaka Foundation is funding research into experimental prosthetics for land-mine survivors. A few non-invasive tests, and you might be able to help a lot of children walk again."

Bucky sucks in a deep, shaky breath and nods his understanding. _Land mines. Helping kids. Okay. Doesn't sound so bad._

"What about," he wheezes, "after?"

"After what?"

"After I'm," he shrugs, "not as bad." He doesn't want to say _better_. He's pretty sure that's off the table for him now. "Then what?"

"Then you wait," T'Challa says simply. "You will remain as my guest until I see fit to send you home."

"You're just gonna ... keep me?" Bucky tries to keep the fear off his face. It's a lot better than what he deserves, he knows that, but the idea of months or years in a place like this, not knowing what's going to happen to him ...

"Yes," T'Challa tells him. "And there is one other restriction. Under no circumstances are you to make contact with Steve Rogers."

"Why?" Bucky winces as soon as the question's out of his mouth. It's the kind of response that would get him a blow to the head with Hydra, but Steve's always made him stupid.

"On a philosophical level, because I command it," T'Challa replies. "On a more practical level, because if he discovers you are here, he will tear my country apart to recover you. He's already making a name for himself in certain circles with his ... enthusiasm."

Bucky cringes.

"Yes," T'Challa agrees. "Consider, Sergeant, that you are in the best of all possible situations. You are safe and being looked after, under the protection of an absolute ruler. You are being granted greater privileges and more freedom than any other government on this planet would accord you. And all you are being asked to do is allow your wounds to heal, and help to heal the victims of war."

"For now," Bucky points out.

"For now," T'Challa admits. "If your Captain Rogers were to come here, however, he would insist on taking you with him when he goes. When I refused, a great number of my people would die, most likely followed by you and your companion. I might be a gracious host, but I am also a king. Is it not better to let him search a while, and save all those lives?"

"He's ..." Bucky looks down. He doesn't want to say it. It's only going to get him in trouble.

_Say it anyway. Say it and be damned._

"He's all the family I got." 

Bucky wonders what that sounds like to a king.

T'Challa studies him for a moment. Bucky clenches his right hand into a fist, carefully not thinking about his bionic left arm. He doesn't want to find out what T'Challa and his people have done to render it safe enough to be in a hospital like this. Bucky can feel the sedatives still drifting through his veins, making him soft and sleepy. Malleable. He's at T'Challa's mercy, and he knows it.

"Don't worry," T'Challa says at last. "When the time is right, he will hear from me."

Bucky knows the end of a conversation when he hears one. He nods.

"Any more questions?" 

Headshake. 

"Very well. If you think of anything, ask your caregivers. I'll be in touch."

Bucky stares down at the blanket in silence as T'Challa rises noiselessly from his chair and walks out.

It's going to be a long rest of his life.


	2. Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky adjusts, learns a little bit about his new home, and attends the most perplexing tea party of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I lied. Three parts, not two. T'Challa's teatime kind of took over.

Bucky has good days and bad days.

Early on, the good days are the ones where his medications are in balance, where he knows what day it is and which hemisphere he's in. T'Challa's doctors visit him every day while he's confined to the hospital—and that's how he can't help thinking of it, _confined_ —and once he's released, they come a couple of times a week to the small apartment in the royal palace where he ends up spending a lot of his time.

The doctors have to come to him. On bad days, he can't go anywhere.

On bad days, he hallucinates, or vomits, or seizes, or screams for hours on end. He cowers in corners, expecting a shock or a blow. He smashes furniture—but never people, interestingly; either T'Challa's staff are good at keeping their distance when he's out of his mind, or he's somehow retaining enough self-control to avoid hurting anyone who's not actively hurting him.

They almost never hurt him. It never stops feeling strange, the way his visitors _don't_ bring pain. He understands intellectually that most interactions between human beings don't involve one or more of those human beings in agony, but it still seems odd. He keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He meets with the therapist. And then, when the first therapist turns out to remind him too much of one of his Hydra handlers (not her fault, he assures her in frightened whispers—it's something about the Russian accent), he meets with a different therapist. He goes through three of them before he finds one he trusts. He cringes every time he has to ask for another tryout, but no one ever complains or reprimands him.

The fourth therapist is an exceptionally calm Belgian woman, and a good listener. He's not used to that, but it seems to help.

The adventure with the therapists is Bucky's introduction to the fact that Wakanda has an exceptionally large expatriate population. While it seems there are native Wakandan experts in absolutely everything, the place also attracts a certain class of genius, or eccentric, or square peg freshly pulled from a round hole, looking to work with the very best and not too picky about dropping off the face of the earth to do it.

And they have, most of them, dropped off the face of the earth.

He learns about it when he gets the Belgian lady talking. There are Skype calls home, emails and text messages, but travel in and out of Wakanda is restricted. In general, King T'Challa has no objection to foreigners moving to his country as long as they play by his rules, but he makes it remarkably inconvenient for them to leave. They are well-paid and well cared for, and in general they seem happy ... but they're _here_ instead of anywhere else.

A lot like Bucky.

It makes him miss Steve more than he would have thought possible. Before he woke up in the Queen N'Yami, Steve was a dull, throbbing ache in his chest, like a bruise on his heart. Now the absence of the one person who truly knows him burns and eats away at him. The more good days he has, the more he longs for Steve to see him like this—whole, functional, not dangerous. And on bad days ... on bad days he just wants Steve to hold him and tell him it'll be okay.

But he doesn't try to call, even after he _accidentally_ finds and memorizes the Avengers' public contact number. T'Challa is probably lying to him about some things, but the king is right about Steve. Even a whiff of Bucky's presence in Wakanda, and Steve would be breaking down the palace doors. 

The international news is proof enough of that.

T'Challa might not be a fan of international travel, but on good days, Bucky has access to a computer with a fast internet connection, and Wakanda has no national firewalls that he can detect. Dr. Bauchau persuades him not to set up Google alerts for Hydra, for the sake of his recovery, but terms like _Captain America_ and _Avengers_ are fair game. And there are plenty of stories.

_Captain America destroys Hydra laboratory in Russia. Avengers level Hydra facility in Indonesia. Captain America sighted in street battle in Rio de Janeiro._

Steve is obviously throwing everything he's got into destroying Hydra, and while that isn't exactly a surprise—the guy was remade as a weapon against fascist assholes—Bucky can read Steve's face in photos, his body language in interviews. Whatever he's doing, it's personal, and he's willing to commit apocalyptic violence to accomplish his goal.

That's not the Steve that Bucky (sometimes) remembers, but it sure as hell matches the Steve Rogers history describes in the weeks after Sergeant James Barnes fell off a train in the Alps.

Bucky worries.

He worries so much, in fact, that Dr. Bauchau starts talking about prescribing him tranquilizers. _That_ worries him even more, until a Thursday afternoon in October when Dr. Bauchau shows up fifteen minutes late for their appointment, apologizes, and writes out an assurance that Bucky will never be required to take any medication not immediately necessary to his physical wellbeing. (That's a compromise all by itself—Bucky has agreed that even on bad days, he can be forced to take anticonvulsants until the serum heals the brain damage Hydra caused and he quits having seizures.)

Bucky leaves that session feeling a lot lighter, and when he returns to his quarters, he finds a large envelope with the Wakandan royal seal on it.

Inside is a collection of press releases announcing a partnership between the King T'Chaka Foundation and the Howard and Maria Stark Foundation, using Wakandan medical advances and the Stark data on the super-soldier serum to work on combating brain degeneration in Alzheimer's patients.

A partnership, Bucky notes in a highlighted sentence, that will require Captain America to personally spend two weeks in a secure Stark lab, providing tissue samples and generally being a lab rat. Two weeks in which Steve will have to eat and sleep a reasonable amount, and absolutely _won't_ be shot at.

There are photos of Steve at the announcement ceremony with Peggy Carter on his arm—alive, whole, and safe for the time being. Bucky tacks them to the wall above his bed, and sleeps through the night for the first time he can remember.

The next morning, he begins testing on his neural relays for the prosthetics lab.

In late November, he gets invited to tea with the king.

*

Most of the doors in the palace don't have knobs or visible hinges. They slide into the walls if you're allowed to enter, remain stubbornly still if you're not. Bucky is gripping the little gilt-edged card in his right hand, and he's still shocked when the door to the private library opens for him.

"Sergeant," the deep, melodic voice calls from within. "Right on time. Come in."

Suppressing a shiver— _royalty, do not touch_ —Bucky steps into the room and hopes he's not underdressed. He spent nearly half an hour deciding what to wear before settling on plain black pants and a black button-down shirt from the wardrobe T'Challa supplied him. He's still not comfortable leaving the palace for anything as complex as clothes shopping. Besides, it's not like he'll be going dancing or trying to impress any girls any time soon. Clean and simple will do.

And he's got a funny feeling the king likes the color black. There's a lot of it around the palace. Not in a funereal way, not creepy. Just ... a lot of black. Statues carved from black stone. Black silk wall hangings in several rooms. And in every photo Bucky has seen of T'Challa, he's wearing black, charcoal gray, or a combination thereof. A lot of black. And Bucky's instinct is to blend in.

The library is bigger than it looks from the outside, and not like any library Bucky can remember seeing. There are books lining the walls and the shelves of freestanding bookcases, yes, but he can hear water trickling somewhere nearby. A fountain? And the smell of greenery and soil is overwhelming. The place smells more like a greenhouse than a library.

"Where are you?" Bucky calls.

"Follow the path," T'Challa replies.

Bucky looks down. There's a black stripe woven into the pattern of the carpet, about as broad as his shoulders. Of course. More black. He steps onto it and starts walking.

The path leads him in a slow meander to the back of the cavernous room, the water trickling louder with every turn of the stripe. There are clumps of greenery throughout the library, growing in pots and planters under strategically placed skylights. That's another thing he's noticed—Wakandans, or at least T'Challa, _really_ like their plants. They do everything possible to bring the jungle indoors. Bucky finds it oddly soothing. Plants make good cover, and the scent makes the palace feel less like a prison.

Finally he's dumped out into a clearing, in front of a surprisingly natural-looking waterfall that feeds into a deep pool lined with—of course—more plants. In front of the pool is a small table with two chairs, plus an old-fashioned tea cart set with pot, cups, crockery, utensils, and an array of snacks. Bucky's nostrils flare as he catches a whiff of warm scones.

T'Challa is seated in one of the chairs. A tiny smile flickers across his face as he takes in his first sight of Bucky.

They're both wearing all black.

"Well," Bucky drawls once he realizes T'Challa isn't going to say anything, " _I'm_ not going home to change."

That earns him a chuckle. T'Challa gestures for Bucky to sit, and he obeys.

The king reaches behind him for two cups, sets them on the table, and turns back for the teapot.

"I can do that," Bucky says, beginning to stand up. It's probably not right for a king to be serving tea to his—prisoner? pet? whatever Bucky is—and he's still got _some_ manners.

"Sit," T'Challa replies, turning back to pour the tea.

Bucky sits.

"Today," T'Challa continues as he pours, "I'll be Mother."

Bucky can't suppress the snort. "If _my_ ma could see me right now, she'd tan my hide. Tea with the king, an' I'm not even wearing a tie." His smirk fades as he remembers he doesn't actually own any ties now. No one has given him any. He tries not to read anything into that.

"Your mother was strict, then?" T'Challa asks, setting the teapot back on the cart and picking up a plate of scones. He sets them in the exact center of the table, adds a few condiments, and picks up his cup.

Bucky purses his lips in thought. "Not strict, I guess. Just smart. She had four kids and not a lot of money, so she pushed us all to be the best we could. She wanted people to like us, I think, so they'd help us along. Me, I was kind of a mess as a kid, so she prodded me into caring a little more about how I looked. I was a good student, but she used to tell me it wouldn't matter how bright I was if I looked like Pappy Yokum." He feels his cheeks warming as he remembers looking up whatever happened to _Li'l Abner_. "He was, uh, this comic-strip character—"

"Who bathed infrequently," T'Challa finishes. 

Bucky gapes.

T'Challa smiles and sips his tea. "I have a lot of interests. And I see your memory is returning. Has Dr. Bauchau offered an opinion?"

Bucky shrugs self-consciously and stares into his teacup. "She says I'm doing better than expected. I think I've got most of the really early stuff back—my family, Steve. The war's still in pieces, but she says that's pretty normal considering it was a long time ago and I was, uh, tortured." It still feels strange to think of what happened to him in Austria as _torture_. It only lasted a few days, and compared to everything that followed, it hardly seems worth mentioning. "After the train, it's all a mess still. But I don't know how much I want to remember from then anyway. The doc says that's okay." He glances up. "Unless you need to know something, I guess."

T'Challa shakes his head. "Not at all."

Bucky swallows. "You said ..."

"Yes?"

"You said I did something here." He gazes intently into the ripples in his tea. "A crime."

"You did, but not here. Evidence suggests you killed our vice-chancellor in Switzerland in 1976. My mother's brother, as it happens."

"Oh." Bucky doesn't look up. _I'm sorry_ doesn't seem to cover it.

"Don't concern yourself. As I told you, you're far more valuable to Wakanda alive and in good health. In any case, Dr. Bauchau assures me you weren't responsible for your actions, so any legal case against you would likely collapse. If you feel the need to atone, do so by recovering as much as you can. That is how you can best repay Wakanda."

Bucky nods. It seems expected of him.

There's a soft chuckle from the other side of the table. "You don't believe me."

Bucky winces. 

"No, your response is reasonable. You've spent seventy years with people getting what they want from you by main force. Now someone comes along with a carrot instead of a stick, and you don't know what to make of it."

"I don't know what you want," Bucky says softly.

"I want a lot of things." T'Challa taps the plate between them. "Take a scone."

Bucky does, using his carefully washed right hand. The warm bread gives slightly beneath his fingers, no matter how delicately he tries to handle it. Hydra made him stronger, and he's still getting used to it.

T'Challa expertly splits a scone—it looks like it's made with red currants—and begins spreading lemon curd on half of it. "For example," he continues, "I want a few of my priests to quit telling their followers that vaccines contain the spirits of the unquiet dead. Technically they do, of course, but they're the unquiet dead of the virus world, which is rather the point of the exercise." He sets the scone half down, picks up the other half, and turns his attention to the butter dish. "I want lower infant mortality rates in rural areas. I want Tony Stark to stop inviting himself to visit and playing affronted when I tell him no. I want national unity to trump tribal politics in the high council. I have a great many wants." He gives Bucky an enigmatic smile. "It is a natural consequence of being a king." 

"What do you want from _me_?" Bucky asks, almost too quietly to be heard over the murmur of the waterfall.

T'Challa cocks his head to one side. "Hmm," he muses. "Today? I believe I would like to hear about Steven Grant Rogers." 

Bucky can't suppress the flinch this time. _Should've known. No such thing as a free lunch._

He runs down his options. Refuse? T'Challa might kill him, which would still be pretty much okay, except that doesn't end the threat T'Challa poses to Steve. The guy's obviously smart as hell and richer than Croesus, so he'll just find someone else to pump for information, and Bucky will have died for nothing.

Lie? That only works if he knows his audience, what T'Challa wants to hear. If T'Challa's looking for Steve's weaknesses as a tactician, Bucky can probably feed him fake ones. But what if what he really wants to know is whether Steve has physical vulnerabilities, or psychological ones? It'll be all but impossible to construct a detailed lie that fits with whatever intelligence T'Challa has already gathered. Good lies have truth in them, and Bucky has no way of knowing what truth to mix in. He hasn't had a conversation with Steve in seventy years.

...

He hasn't had a conversation with Steve in _seventy years_.

It's not a plan, not a whole plan, but it's sort of ... plan-shaped.

"I don't remember a lot," Bucky mumbles. "From now, I mean. Mostly I just remember what he was like before." That, and an indescribable ache to see and hear and smell and touch whoever he is now.

"Tell me about the man you remember, then. Your friend." 

Bucky leans back in his chair, pinches a bit of his scone between two fingers, and sucks the blob of quickbread meditatively into his mouth. Bad manners, but he cares less now. 

"He was little," he says. "I guess everybody knows that now, everybody says it, but it doesn't really cover how _little_ he was. Didn't get any taller between eighth grade and the war. I could get my fingers around his whole wrist." He holds up his human hand in the okay sign, index and thumb touching. "Used to do that sometimes to piss him off."

"Was that a common occupation?"

Bucky shrugs. "For us, yeah. The thing is, _Steve_ was never little. His personality, his voice—everything on the inside of him was the size of the Brooklyn Bridge. He wanted to fight the whole world, like one of those little dogs behind a picket fence. But he'd have gotten himself killed doing that, so sometimes I'd pick fights with him just so he could fight somebody." He smiles to himself. "I had him going for maybe a month thinking I supported the Yankees." 

T'Challa laughs, deep and rich. "Isn't that a mortal sin for anyone from Brooklyn?"

"Nearest thing to. He gave me a sock in the gut when he found out. Didn't say anything for two days. But he forgave me eventually." Bucky buries a sad smile in his teacup. "He always did, if I gave him long enough."

"You must be dear to him. The history books have a lot to say about it."

"History's full of crap." The words are out of Bucky's mouth before he's had a chance to think them over.

If it's possible to sip tea in an amused manner, T'Challa's managing it. "Oh?"

In for a penny, in for a pound. "Yeah," Bucky snarls. "I read a couple of those books, and y'know what I noticed?"

"Do tell."

Bucky taps his human index finger on the table. "Not a one of 'em had any quotes or anything from the Howling Commandos. Not Peggy, not Dum-Dum, nobody. They were all hiding behind the door when the historians called." He scowls. "Now, why would that be?"

T'Challa says nothing for a moment. The waterfall talks to itself. The scones have stopped steaming. He takes a long, contemplative sip of tea.

Then he says, "Do you know why you're here, Sergeant?"

Bucky throws up his hands. "Not a fu—friggin' clue." He's still got just enough manners not to say _fuck_ in front of a king who's carrying— _wow, five concealed weapons today, makin' a guy feel special._

"Not here in Wakanda. Here at this table."

Bucky rolls his eyes. "Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder an' a little bit worse."

"There are not a lot of tea drinkers in Wakanda." The king sets his empty cup on its saucer with a clink of bone china. "We were never colonized, you see. You'll find no French bakeries here save those run by Frenchmen. No street names in European languages. And no afternoon tea, except among a few British expats and here, in the palace." He tilts his head. "Why would _that_ be?"

Bucky shrugs. "I dunno. You like tea?"

T'Challa nods. "That is the simplest way of putting it. I took a liking to the custom while I was at university. It's a rather pleasant ritual. But I do not publicize it. I don't take tea with visiting dignitaries or members of my staff. Only my friends."

"Buddy, if I'm all you've got for friends, you need some new ones. You should maybe join a bowling league."

"Hm." T'Challa smiles slightly. "I don't make a public point of drinking tea for the same reason, I imagine, that your comrades don't speak about you to historians and you've just spent several minutes telling me nothing of substance about your friend. Some things are nobody's business but our own, no matter how celebrated the subject."

Bucky squinted. "If there's a point here, I'm missing it."

T'Challa pushes back his chair and stands. "The point, Sergeant, is that you've just helped me make a decision that has been troubling me for several days. For that, you have my thanks. I hope you'll join me for tea again, some other day."

Bucky sullenly remains sitting. "What kind of decision?"

"One that will ultimately benefit you and Captain Rogers quite a bit, if my forecasts are correct. As I keep telling you, Sergeant, I intend you no harm."

Bucky considers that. "In that case," he says slowly, standing up, "I need to ask you a favor."

"Which is?"

"Don't call me Sergeant. I haven't been a sergeant in a long time, and ... it just doesn't feel right, y'know?"

T'Challa nods and holds out a hand. "Mister Barnes, then. Tea next week? Next Friday, perhaps?"

Bucky shakes. "You know where to find me."

"Yes. I do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should wrap things up all the way to Civil War. And yes, there will be more tea.


	3. Cultural Exchange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and T'Challa drink more tea, discuss religion, and engage in culturally enriching musical activities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: I DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT SWING DANCING. Everything in this chapter is the product of cursory Googling and valiant attempts to keep up with the conversation of my friend ladylokitty, who is an avid swing and blues dancer and may make me change this chapter once she reads it.
> 
> I've already written about half of the next chapter, which WILL include the events of AoU and the long-awaited culmination of T'Challa's master plan. So the next one will probably be the last chapter, for realsies.

Tea becomes a regular event.

Not every Friday, but most of them. Bucky finds a gilt-edged card in his quarters when he returns from his Thursday afternoon therapy session—now held outside the palace, giving him a chance to see a little of the city through the window of one of the king's armored sedans—and he presents himself at the library door precisely at four o'clock the next day. Wearing all black, every time, because by now it's just funny.

The conversation varies widely. Steve doesn't come up often after the first meeting, though Bucky's past in Brooklyn makes frequent cameo appearances. The rest of the time, the two men in black seem to chat about whatever's on T'Challa's mind. They discuss music (Bucky is rediscovering his love of jazz, while T'Challa reveals a surprising predilection for early British punk). They talk about sports (T'Challa tries to explain the complexities of the local football scene; Bucky remains stubbornly loyal to baseball, and eventually decides to forgive the Dodgers for being taken out of Brooklyn against their will once T'Challa points out that Bucky has had essentially the same experience). Family is a safe and fairly pleasant topic—T'Challa never knew his mother and had only a sociopathic adopted brother for company growing up, but he delights in Bucky's stories of his little sisters getting into trouble and dragging their poor big brother in after them. 

Tea with the king becomes the highlight of Bucky's week.

It's well after New Year's (T'Challa spent the holidays at state functions, Bucky with a small group of friendly European expats who made a point of not asking about his arm) when Bucky gets up the nerve to ask about the cats.

There are cats _everywhere_ in the palace—black stone panthers guarding the doors, black cat silhouettes in wall hangings, carved cat heads and blown-glass cat claws and a generally shocking abundance of whiskers, coiled tails, and slit pupils. All _black_ , for some reason, and Bucky's trying like crazy not to read something racial into it. At first he thought black panthers were some kind of Wakandan national animal, like tigers in India or bears in Russia, but that doesn't make sense—black panthers aren't a _species_ , they're just leopards with a skin condition. Or something like that; he can't remember now where he read that.

T'Challa laughs when he's asked—deep, rich, and unfeigned. Like it's the funniest thing he's heard all week.

"You truly don't know?" he asks, eyes glittering.

Bucky feels his face getting hot. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. I forget sometimes you wouldn't have read much about Wakanda when you were young. Yes, panthers are our national symbol. They're also our gods, in a way. As am I."

Bucky chokes on his tea. "Wh—what?" he gags.

T'Challa grins. His teeth are very white and perfectly straight—which Bucky has mentally labeled Future Oddity No. 412: Crooked Teeth Are Much Less Prevalent—and there's something good-natured and predatory about it.

"The king of Wakanda," he says, "is the avatar of Bast, the cat goddess, bringer of fertility and life and patron of this land. Like my father before me and all the kings before him, I have partaken of the sacred herb, performed all the necessary rituals, and am now—" he launches into a string of syllables Bucky couldn't hope to pronounce, much less remember, "—or, in approximate English, the living panther god."

Bucky temporarily loses control of his mouth and the word "Bullshit" falls out of it.

T'Challa laughs again. "That may be the most honest reaction I've ever gotten, Mister Barnes. I congratulate you for it." He raises his teacup in salute. "But it is true all the same."

"I might be brain-damaged," Bucky says slowly, "and I don't wanna be rude, but—"

"There's only one god, and he doesn't dress like that?"

Bucky frowns. "Dress like what?"

"Never mind. It's something your Captain said once about one of his comrades. Thor."

Bucky gives T'Challa a perfectly flat look. He's read about Thor, of course, and assumed the guy was a harmless loony with ... well, some kind of lightning powers, okay? Or close enough. Bucky's not a scientist and it _is_ the future and anything is more believable than Steve palling around with somebody straight out of Edith Hamilton.

"Point taken," Bucky says dryly. "Also, you're an asshole."

T'Challa chuckles.

It feels unreal, forbidden. For so long—decades, really, but decades he chooses not to remember if the opportunity arises—Bucky was unable to call anyone an asshole. He lived beneath a hard rubber muzzle, bound by the high, tight collar of the Winter Soldier's body armor. (An unrestricted internet connection has enabled Bucky to discover something called BDSM, and decide that whichever Hydra asshole designed that combat rig was _really into it_ , and that for that reason alone Bucky never wants to go near leather again if he can help it.)   
Questioning his masters, talking back, calling them names—these were unthinkable acts. Even speaking out of turn would earn him a blow or a beating. And before that, he had manners, no matter what Steve said.

Now he's calling a king an asshole, and the king is just smirking and drinking his tea.

_This is it_ , Bucky decides. _This right here._ This _is the weirdest thing about the future._

A month later, T'Challa calls on him on a Friday _evening_ instead of afternoon. 

"Get dressed," he orders. "We're going out."

"What for?" Bucky asks cautiously.

"Cultural exchange."

After some thought, Bucky selects his usual black, but in fine fabrics and with a little drape to the trousers and jacket. Something he might have gone dancing in, back in the day. It's been a long time since he's needed to look sharp, but he feels like it tonight. It's probably a positive sign.

He chooses a deep blue tie. Silver would make T'Challa laugh, but Bucky's missing Steve tonight. It burns. The blue—like Steve's uniform, like his eyes, like that ultramarine blue paint he used to love because it reminded him of the evening sky or the Virgin's robe—helps to dull the pain, cool it to nothing but a warm throb in his heart.

He also slips a couple of knives into the secret pockets he's sewn in all his clothes. Occupational therapy is good for him; he's pretty sure the doc said that at some point.

"Striking color," T'Challa remarks, nodding at the tie when Bucky comes out fully dressed, pulling on black gloves.

"It's a favorite," Bucky replies.

"Not red?" 

Bucky smiles and flips him the bird. 

The car is heavier than the one T'Challa normally sends for Bucky's medical and psych appointments. There's more armor. Bucky approves. He wonders if he can make Steve ride around in a car like this someday. It won't protect the big punk from himself, of course, but it might cut down the number of random passersby trying to kill him just for being Steve. That counts for something.

"Where are we going?" Bucky asks, trying to peer out the windows without being too obvious. The city blurs past him, neon and silhouetted trees. Wakanda's capital looks like a cross between Buck Rogers serials and Tarzan ones to Bucky, all sleekness and steel and outcrops of brilliant leafy green. By night, it's its own kind of jungle.

T'Challa doesn't answer, only leans back in his seat and watches Bucky watch the town. Bucky takes that as permission to be a tourist for a few minutes, and goes back to ogling.

T'Challa's a tough customer in a lot of ways. Bucky sure as hell wouldn't want to play poker with the guy because it's almost impossible to tell what he's thinking. But one thing he _does_ seem to have an opinion on is Bucky himself. If Bucky is happy or pleasantly excited, whether it's over blueberry scones or the Dodgers on a streak, T'Challa is usually at least smiling. It makes Bucky wonder what T'Challa's plan for him is. Why is it so important that he be _happy_? 

Nobody other than Steve has really cared about whether Bucky was happy or well before. Sure, Hydra wanted him functional, but his comfort was never a priority. The Army cared about whether he could do his job. The SSR cared about whether he was keeping Captain America in fighting trim. The Russians ... well, they wanted what they wanted, and Bucky's not even sure what the Russian word for happiness _is_.

But T'Challa wants him happy. It's the strangest thing.

Bucky's thought about trying to be miserable just to spite the guy for kidnapping him and cutting him off from Steve, but that would be stupid and shortsighted and ... he's getting to like T'Challa, kind of. He's a little bit like Steve, in a crazy mirror-universe way (Bucky has watched every episode of the original _Star Trek_ by now and is going to make Steve do the same thing someday). They have the same quiet confidence, the same deceptively sharp mind, and Bucky can't escape the feeling that T'Challa has a set of ideals that burn as bright as Steve's—they're just a lot better hidden. Bucky can't help liking Mirror Universe Steve.

And besides, who in their right mind would deliberately _choose_ to be miserable? 

The car stops in front of a door with a blue-lettered neon sign above it. Bucky can't read whichever Wakandan tribal language it's written in, but there's a yellow neon saxophone next to the letters.

"Here?" Bucky asks, staring at the sax.

"Here," T'Challa confirms, and opens the door.

Bucky steps out first and scans the street, but it seems clear. T'Challa follows, and they walk toward what looks like a little nightclub. A doorman sees them coming and opens the club door for them, spilling music onto the street.

Bucky grins so wide his face starts to hurt. "Cultural exchange, huh?" he asks, raising his voice to be heard over a blast of big-band brass.

"What were you expecting," T'Challa replies, "folk dancing?"

They walk in, and the music swallows them whole. Bucky feels like his entire body has been electrified. He knows this. He _knows_ this. He starts to bounce on the balls of his feet as he catches the tempo of the music. 

T'Challa laughs. "Go on," he tells Bucky. "You know you want to. I'll get the drinks."

Bucky makes an excited noise that sounds embarrassingly like Mickey Mouse giggling, and dives into the crowd on the dance floor.

Memories flood over him and through him as he taps the shoulder of the first lone girl he sees. They haven't been introduced or anything, but apparently a giddy grin is better than buying somebody dinner, because it takes less than three seconds of awkward pantomime before she grabs his hand and pulls him out into the middle of the floor and into a Lindy hop. 

The girl looks like a Wakandan local, and she's got what he's come to think of as the urban Wakandan look—tall and slim, with her hair twisted into an elaborate braided updo and a near-permanent look of skeptical amusement on her face. But it only takes a few moments before she's grinning, too, flashing straight white teeth at him under the swirling lights. Her flaring scarlet dress flies out around her as she steps, swings, and spins. _Rock step, triple step._ She starts throwing in arm flourishes and little hip flicks that have him laughing with delight, and the flash in her eyes tells him she's having almost as much fun as he is. 

He's almost sorry when the song ends, and he has to step back and let her go. 

She grabs his hand—his _left_ hand, the metal one, and she doesn't notice or doesn't care that it's steel-hard under his glove—and yanks him into another dance as soon as the next song begins. This one's so high-tempo that several couples scramble off the floor to escape, but the girl in the scarlet dress knows how to shag. _Step, hop, step, hop—slow, slow, quick, quick._

Bucky's in love.

A memory flickers: dark-skinned hands on his shoulders; his eyes on his feet; a warm, deep, Georgia voice drawling _No, Sarge, you gotta relax a little, remember it's supposed to be fun ..._

The realization hits him so hard he almost misses a step. _Gabe Jones. He taught me this. Right after we got back, we got drunk—or tried—and I looked so low he dragged me out on the floor of that stupid pub—_

The song ends, and this time it's Bucky who backs off, his smile now shaky. The girl lets him go, smirking a little like a cat who's watching a bird flutter away.

Bucky finds T'Challa at a corner table with three glasses. The king is sipping at something sharp-smelling in a little glass, and there's an unmistakable whiskey on the rocks sitting untouched in front of an empty chair, along with a pint glass full of what looks like water. Bucky drops into the chair, grabs the bigger glass, and gulps. He's starting to sweat. It's hot in here.

"You're very good," T'Challa remarks calmly, when Bucky's poured half the water down his throat.

Bucky sets the water glass down and eyes the whiskey. "I didn't know people still danced like this," he says over a drum fill. "I thought it was all—" He bobs his head and wiggles his hips in an approximation of what he's seen people doing on YouTube. 

T'Challa shakes his head. "You can find anything if you look hard enough." He eyes Bucky sideways. "You look as though you've found something yourself."

Bucky nods. "I know how I learned to shag now." He spreads his hands and wiggles his fingers. "Ta-daaaa. Hope that works with your master plan, whatever it is."

"As a matter of fact, it does." T'Challa takes a swallow of his drink.

"D'you ever ...?" Bucky jerks his head at the jitterbugs on the floor.

"Dancing is part of the curriculum," T'Challa replies. "Kings are princes first, and a prince must know his way around a formal ball. Or a less formal one."

"Huh." Bucky tries to imagine what that must have been like. What _do_ people teach princes? Manners and protocol and how to be cuttingly sarcastic without starting a war ... just the thought of it makes his head spin.

But dancing ... dancing is something Bucky _knows_.

He grins at the king. "Sure," he says slyly, "but can you _swing_?"

Five minutes later, every drop in the three glasses has been drunk and Bucky is pulling T'Challa onto the floor and walking him through a basic Lindy. Either T'Challa's a quick study or he's already has a few lessons, but either way, he's lithe and graceful and yeah, Bucky's beginning to see the cat thing. It's in the hips, he thinks, or the curve of his spine. _He moves like he's got an invisible tail._

They don't have any trouble finding partners. 

It's easy to get lost in the music, and for minutes on end, Bucky forgets what year it is. He's dressed to the nines, the band is hot, and either every dame in the place is drop-dead gorgeous or he's been away too long. Probably both. On his third dance, he dips his partner low, sees the flicker of worry in her eyes—and then pulls her lightly back up with a flourish. Everything's so easy he forgets it's because one of his arms is metal.

He switches partners every dance or two, and nobody complains. If anything, there's a line once people get a good look at his moves and his smile, and Bucky Barnes is nothing if not a gentleman. _God, that's it, isn't it?_ he thinks. It's the first time in seventy years he's been one hundred percent _Bucky_.

_I wish Steve was here. I wish he could see this._

The thought kills his smile for a moment, but the music is swelling and the girl in his arms starts to spin and the moment passes like a bird overhead—a fleeting shadow, nothing more. He dances on.

Bucky's not sure what changes his mood half an hour later, but it happens slowly, subtly. Maybe it's when he pauses for water, passing a freshly unsealed bottle back and forth with T'Challa, and feels eyes on his skin. He looks around, but nobody seems to be watching him, and he slips back into the dance.

Maybe it's a few minutes later, when he dips a pretty blonde girl from Sweden of all places and hears T'Challa laugh nearby, but there's something off about the sound. He focuses on it for a heartbeat, but there's nothing definably wrong there. He can't figure out what anomaly tripped his internal alarms.

But the atmosphere in the club changes. The warm, excited air turns hot and thick, the brass section is suddenly slightly out of sync with the rest of the combo, there's something sinister about the way the bandleader never turns around, and Bucky feels his breathing start to hitch—

—and that's when he sees the knife.

The guy holding it is young, a teenager, and he's sweating as he dances but it's the wrong kind of sweat for a jitterbug, and he's breaking the pattern of the dance floor as he moves from partner to partner, and Bucky realizes too late what's going on. Something alien and familiar switches on in his brain, and he drops his own partner's hand and dives into the crowd, plowing through like a pissed-off rhino. But it's still too _slow_ , there are too many _people_ , why the hell can't they _see_ —

He's five meters away from T'Challa when the boy reaches his target.

There's a scream, something shrill and wild in a dialect Bucky hasn't bothered to learn, and the knife moves and T'Challa's body twists and the dance floor erupts like an anthill that's been kicked and _everything_ happens at once.

The boy jumps back, thrusting the bloody knife into the air as T'Challa starts to go down, and the kid starts to yell something and Bucky's making a beeline for him, but somebody else gets there first. There's a blur of scarlet and a flash of braids and the girl in red, the one Bucky first danced the Lindy with, hits the kid with a flying tackle. And then it's pandemonium. The knife goes flying and everyone around the two fighters is piling on—

Bucky's still two and a half meters away when he realizes what the crowd is doing. The girl in red is sitting on the boy's chest, pinning his arms down with both her knees, and a Wakandan man in a navy-blue suit and fedora is holding down the boy's left leg, and an Asian woman in a little black dress has the kid's right, and in seconds the kid is totally immobilized. He keeps rolling his head around, screeching whatever incomprehensible thing he yelled before the stabbing, until somebody slaps a hand down over his mouth.

A second crowd has formed around T'Challa, who's kneeling on the floor, but this one's a ring, leaving about a meter of open space around the guy. The king is bleeding from his left side, pressing his fingers to the wound and breathing more deeply than is strictly called for. But no one's touching him.

The hell with that.

"Lemme through!" Bucky snarls, and shoves his way past the ring to drop to his knees next to his host. He's not a paramedic, but he knows wounds, dammit—

His fingers are probing the bloody spot (deep puncture, might've hit something vital, and it's too dim to really see the color of the blood) when he feels T'Challa's side shaking and looks up.

The king is laughing. Silently, but laughing.

"Ha—having fun?" he rasps. "Cultural exchange." 

"Shut up," Bucky snaps, and turns to yell over his shoulder, " _Bar towel! Goddamn NOW!_ " He reflexively adds a translation in Russian, then French, because who the hell knows what languages are spoken in the room.

Three people come running with towels. He snatches one and presses it hard against the wound. It turns red way too fast. He adds another, clamping it into place with his metal hand and slipping his right arm behind T'Challa's shoulders.

"Up," he growls. "Hospital or palace?"

"Home," is all T'Challa says.

Palace, then, probably. Bucky hauls him to his feet and they stagger to the door like a couple of drunks.

The driver is at the door, and they barely make it out onto the street before three black cars roar up and spill out some very dangerous-looking people. The men, all of them in black combat gear, run into the club, but one car disgorges three women in similar kit, and _they_ head straight for Bucky and T'Challa with furious looks on their faces.

Whatever this bullshit is, Bucky's not in the mood. "Unless one of you's a medic," he snarls, " _back off_."

T'Challa coughs and says something in a language Bucky doesn't speak. Two of the women stop, still scowling, but the third slips under the king's right side and helps him into the car. Bucky jumps in after them and slams the door. The driver peels out as soon as they're in, and Bucky's head is slammed against a padded seat back as the woman smoothly reaches under the front passenger seat and pulls out a white box with a red cross on it. There's a tearing of fabric, and she gets to work.

"Mister Barnes," T'Challa grunts after a minute of tense, breathy silence, "may I introduce to you Okoye. One of my Dora Milaje."

Okoye glares at Bucky as she tends T'Challa's wound. Bucky glares back on principle.

He's read up on the Dora Milaje since he left the Queen N'Yami. An ancient tradition, long defunct, but T'Challa revived it about a decade back to counter some kind of intertribal strife. Each of Wakanda's tribes sends one or more girls to be trained as bodyguards and potential wives for the king. A kind of ongoing multiple political marriage, it tamps down some of the nastier tensions.

_Doesn't do much for kids with knives, though._

The ride back to the palace passes in near-silence, with Bucky and Okoye glowering at each other. He's pretty sure she speaks English—she's got to be at least twenty-five, so she's probably been educated in the capital for at least a decade—but she doesn't say anything to him. When she does speak, it's a low murmur of whatever T'Challa speaks to her. Medical stuff, probably— _does that hurt_ or _keep pressure there_. 

Bucky tries not to feel excluded. This is _his_ fault, after all. He went out on the town with a head of state and _no bodyguards_. T'Challa probably expected Bucky to protect him; it goes without saying that a guy who goes dancing with a century-old assassin should be safe from idiots with switchblades. 

_But nooooo, you had to go off your head being a jitterbug, didn't you, Barnes? Had to pretend it was goddamn 1941 all over again, you stupid, rotten son of a bitch._

_This is your fault._

*

The first thing T'Challa says when Bucky is shown into the royal quarters is, "It wasn't your fault."

He's sitting up on a bed that probably has its own ZIP code. His back rests against a mound of pillows, and he's wearing a silk dressing gown in place of an actual shirt. This is probably because he's also wearing bandages around his midsection. Bucky notices two facts simultaneously: one, T'Challa has an impressively muscular torso for a head of state; two, none of those muscles are moving at the moment for any purpose other than breathing and speaking. Bucky hates the part of his brain that informs him that this is a sign that T'Challa's in pain, and now would be a great time to finish him off.

Bucky has learned to ignore the Hydra voices in his head, but he can't switch them off. He's not sure how to feel about that.

Bucky looks miserably down at his blue tie. "I should've stuck with you," he says.

"You may recall," T'Challa says crisply, "that two of the conditions of your residence here are that you harm no one who has not offered you violence and that you obey my orders. The boy did not offer _you_ any violence, and at no point in the evening did I order you to do anything more dangerous than get dressed."

Bucky wants to argue, but he knows better. He looks at his feet instead.

"It was political," T'Challa continues. "Before he used that knife, he shouted—" T'Challa repeats the strange syllables, "which means 'Free the vibranium.' It is logical to assume he supports removing the ceremonial guard from our sacred vibranium mound and selling some or all of the deposit. It's a growing movement. Most of its followers are young, poor, and undereducated. They cannot wait for prosperity."

"Why don't you sell some, then?" Bucky mutters.

"In part, because I do not conduct national policy with switchblades." T'Challa winces. "But the larger reason is that the mound _is_ sacred, and the only sample ever to leave Wakanda was used to make a formidable weapon and then lost in the Arctic for seven decades." He rolls his eyes. "Then used to punch aliens in the face, and then irresponsibly dumped into the Potomac River."

Bucky winces.

"No," T'Challa says gently. "I think we will leave the mound as it is." 

"You shouldn't've gone," Bucky says after a pause, returning to the familiar subject of his own guilt. "If you hadn't been taking me out—"

T'Challa barks out a laugh, so sharply that he has to put a hand to his side.

"You make it sound like you're a jealous girlfriend, Mister Barnes," he chuckles. "Yes, I could have brought Okoye or other Dora Milaje with us. I _chose_ not to do so."

"Why?"

"Because they would have made you nervous. And because it was my considered judgment that I did not need them."

"Because you were with me?" Bucky asks miserably.

"Because that club was full of my people," T'Challa corrects him. "A small, intimate setting like that? It's better to be seen as a man among men and run the risk than flood the place with security and ruin the environment for everyone. You saw how they reacted to a threat. At least in the cities, I am beloved. Most of my people wish me no ill, and the remaining minority—" He shrugs, wincing slightly. "I am usually better at taking care of myself. I admit my own fault there. I should not have become distracted as I did."

"What distracted you?" Bucky studies his shoes intently and waits for the inevitable _you_.

"I've always loved to dance."

Bucky's head snaps up. T'Challa is smiling.

"Go to bed, Mister Barnes," he says. "Get some rest. I'll be fine in the morning."

Bucky snorts. "Not with a stick like that, you won't. That's a week on your back, easy." 

"Not for you and not for me." T'Challa settles back against his pillows. "Call it a perk of being a living god."

Bucky makes his you're-definitely-shitting-me-now face.

T'Challa makes a try-me-and-see face back.

"You know," he says, "I had a thought while Okoye was patching me up. Not the first time I've had it, but perhaps it bears mentioning. You and I have something in common."

"Yeah?" Bucky cocks his head.

"We both have the nasty habit," T'Challa says lazily, "of loving the things that will hurt us most." He gestures to his side.

Bucky thinks that over. Then he says, "Just one thing, really."

T'Challa nods. "Just the one thing for each of us."

Bucky manages a weak half-smile. "Good night, Your Majesty."

"Call me that again and I go back to calling you Sergeant."

Bucky grins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now may be an opportune time to note that I am pretty much the opposite of a fashionista, so I have no idea whether Bucky's outfit is snazzy or stupid. But Sebastian Stan looks nice in black and deep blue, so *shrug*.
> 
> Okoye is not mine. She belongs to Marvel and Christopher Priest. For anyone else familiar with the Priest run, WE WILL NOT BE SEEING NAKIA. I'm not that crazy.


	4. Paid In Full

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AoU happens, Bucky gets a new mission, Civil War begins, Steve has a very good day and a very bad one, and T'Challa's plan is finally revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is probably kind of a long chapter, but at least it wraps everything up. I think.
> 
> I decided to place the Ant-Man credit scene in Germany, where it was apparently filmed, but the setting really works in any country that has warehouses and motels.
> 
> Also, this is a chapter with Bucky and Steve hugging and more hurt/comfort, but I really don't think anyone minds when I write hugging. HUGGING, is my point here.
> 
> Mild CW for alcohol, but, like, it's Bucky and T'Challa having a beer together and nothing bad happens beyond T'Challa complaining about the state of Bucky's fridge and Bucky complaining that T'Challa drinks his beer warm. So unless you're super-triggered by the word "beer", you're probably fine.

In May, he wakes to the sound of his tablet beeping frantically.

Every news alert he has is going bananas, and every headline and dateline teaches him a new name: Sokovia.

_Steve!_

He runs out into the hallway, flags down the first servant he can find, and breathlessly asks where the king is. He's never actually bothered to find out where the throne room might be, but he sprints there now and bursts through the doors before the guards can stop him.

"T'Challa!" he yells, then stops short.

There are a lot of people in the room. A _lot_ of people. Wearing what he is learning to recognize as the ceremonial garb of the chieftains of several different Wakandan tribes ... except for the ones wearing _very_ expensive suits.

T'Challa is seated at the focal point of the room, on a chair carved from black stone that makes it look like he's sitting between the forepaws of a gigantic black panther. And he's wearing black, but not his _usual_ black.

Bucky's hysterical first thought is _Who's strong and brave, here to save the Wakandan waaaaay?_ T'Challa really does look like a funhouse-mirror image of Steve. He wears a close-fitting black armored bodysuit, trimmed with what look like little silver claw marks at his forearms and collarbones. The suit itself covers him from the neck down, and some kind of hood hangs behind his neck.

Everyone in the room is perfectly silent.

T'Challa moves first. He rises from his throne and walks slowly—no, _stalks_ , Bucky can see the felinity in him now—to the door. A short black cape flutters from his shoulders. Bucky stays where he is, frozen by all the eyes on him. A voice in the back of his head is screaming _Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve ..._ But T'Challa is right there.

The king gets within striking distance, prowls right into Bucky's personal space, and snarls, very softly, _"Kneel."_

Bucky drops instantly to his knees. He knows an order when he hears one.

"What is it?" T'Challa asks in something closer to his normal voice. Still deeper than usual, though, and faintly menacing. A gloved hand comes to rest on Bucky's head.

_Holy shit, does he have_ claws _on his gloves?_

"The—the news," Bucky stammers, closing his eyes and hating himself for the way his voice shakes. "I n-need to go."

"Ultron," T'Challa says simply.

"Steve," Bucky answers quietly. Because to hell with the robot, this isn't _about_ the robot. Steve needs him, and Bucky can't not go. The gaping wound in his chest has expanded, and he feels like he's going to collapse in on himself like a dead star.

T'Challa smooths Bucky's hair down. It's almost an affectionate gesture, like a parent to a child. Bucky knows he should hate it, because he remembers enough now to know that Pierce did this kind of shit to him all the time—stroking, petting, caressing as a prelude to a slap that left bells clanging in Bucky's head.

But he doesn't mind when T'Challa does it now. It's soothing, helps him center himself. He's been starved for touch for the last seven decades, missing hugs and wrestling matches without remembering who he wrestled with, and T'Challa seems to be quietly going out of his way to make sure the drought ends smoothly, without anyone cowering in a corner. Bucky's breathing deepens. Until he's back where Steve can touch him again, it's the best way to get what he needs.

T'Challa says, "No."

Bucky freezes. The clawed fingers tighten in his hair, like a warning.

"Do exactly as I say," T'Challa says, again in that too-soft-for-eavesdroppers voice, "and I will help you."

Bucky swallows and nods fractionally. What else is he going to do?

"Return to your quarters," T'Challa orders him, stepping away. "You will receive instructions within the hour."

_An hour?! Steve could already be—_

But T'Challa is already turning away, and Bucky understands, in a moment of striking clarity, that he's hit a limit. Yes, he could slip away from the throne room, try to find an airfield and steal a fueled-up jet, fly to Sokovia and hope to punch robots in the face ... but even if he could find Steve in time to help him, _then_ what? Bucky would only be a hazard in that fight, fractured as he still is, and with Steve unable to trust him after what happened last time they met. The distraction might be fatal. And even if they survived, where would they go? Wakanda is probably the only country on earth where Bucky wouldn't be arrested and killed as soon as people saw the arm. And if he runs, he won't even have this place to come back to.

The knowledge does nothing for the screaming voice in his head, though. It whines at him all the way back to his quarters. _Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve ..._

He paces the room for a solid forty minutes before T'Challa walks in—Bucky's sure he locked the door, but it's an electronic lock and rank hath its privileges—and says, "Come with me."

They take a long, winding route through the bowels of the palace. Halfway through the walk, Bucky realizes something feels off. T'Challa hasn't gone much of anywhere since the stabbing without the Dora Milaje in tow. Okoye, most often, even in his home. Bucky's gotten used to her glare. But now it's just the two of them.

"Am I supposed to be bodyguarding you?" Bucky asks, striding along a half-step behind the king.

"If it makes you feel better to be guarding someone," T'Challa replies. "Does it?"

It's a therapist kind of question. Coming from anybody else, it'd make Bucky scowl. As it is, he just frowns and shrugs. "I'd feel better knowing somebody was guarding you."

"I am quite well-protected. And the Dora Milaje would get in the way of this."

Bucky blinks at that. T'Challa picks up his pace.

Godammit, Wakandan architects don't believe in grids, or sensible floor layouts. Bucky would hate to have to navigate this place on a mission. According to a brochure he found on the palace website (because of course), the building was designed to reflect the traditional structure of Wakandan villages. Bucky assumes those villages, like everydamnthing else in Wakanda, were designed by cats. He makes sure to keep T'Challa in sight even while ogling what appear to be totally unfamiliar panther statues, murals, and wall hangings. He'll never get out of this building alive; he'll starve to death in the corridors first. 

Finally, they reach a pair of double doors, which T'Challa throws open to reveal ...

"You have a gym," Bucky remarks, staring around at the large, airy wood-paneled room with mats on the floor and open windows high on the walls. "This would've been good to know about." His stir-craziness has recently forced him to start running laps through the corridors on his floor in order to burn off super-soldier energy.

"You wouldn't be allowed in without me," T'Challa tells him. "It is a meditation space."

"Yeah? What d'you meditate about?" Bucky asks, and almost doesn't see T'Challa's gloved fist coming at his face in time to dodge it.

His instincts take over. He jerks back in an ungraceful dodge and takes several long steps backward, along the wall, to assess the situation. T'Challa doesn't follow, merely tugs his hood forward over his head, covering his face. He slips smoothly into a fighting stance—feet lightly planted, arms up, fingers curled gently into almost-fists that nevertheless leave those clawed fingers ready to slice into an opponent.

Bucky's distracted by the hood, though. The king's eyes are obscured by some kind of refractive lenses, and the crown of the hood is trimmed with cat ears. Little rounded _cat ears_. What was the _point_ of weaning him off all those Hydra drugs if real life was going to be so much like a hallucination anyway?

"Is this a test?" he asks.

"I have offered you violence, Mister Barnes," the king rumbles from beneath his mask. "Now I order you to fight."

Bucky's second instinct is to whimper in terror. He doesn't want to fight anybody, let alone his friend and patron. Outside the nightclub incident and a couple of full-blown psychotic episodes, early on, he hasn't raised a hand or his voice to anybody in nearly a year. If there's one thing he's learned in ten months of intensive psychotherapy, it's that he doesn't actually _like_ hurting people, no matter how much Hydra tried to make his body and brain reward him for it. Last week's therapy homework was for him to identify a small, achievable long-term goal, and while he's still not sure he can say this, even to the doc, the goal he's settled on is getting Steve to hug him and maybe pet his hair a little. He doesn't want to fight.

But that's his second instinct. His first is to snarl quietly and attack.

T'Challa lets him get close and then lashes out, snake-fast, to backhand him across the face. Bucky moves with the blow, and in the time it takes him to recover, the man in the catsuit has retreated a step and then actually goddamn _backflipped_ out of the way of Bucky's sweeping counterstrike with his metal arm.

_Living panther god. Great._

The fight takes an agonizing fifteen minutes. Bucky's surprised at how out of shape he isn't, how sharp his training and reflexes still are. He and T'Challa chase each other all over the room, striking and dodging, trading punches and kicks and leg sweeps and _would you stop it with the claws, they really goddamn_ hurt. Bucky ends up with sets of shallow slashes across his back, down one thigh, and diagonally across his left pectoral muscle in a move that might have opened his throat if the claws hadn't snagged in the mountain range of scar tissue where his metal arm is fused to his body. T'Challa isn't fighting for tap-outs or submission or first blood. So Bucky can't either.

And the cat guy is a little shit, too. Just when Bucky thinks the king is cornered or tiring, T'Challa will do something crazy like run up a _wall, a motherloving wall, Jesus Mary and Joseph that's not fair—_ and they'll be off to the races again. More slashes and a kick in the chest as the kitty scrambles out of reach of the killing machine.

Not that Bucky's holding back, either. He's sure he leaves deep bruises wherever he strikes or grabs T'Challa. The catsuit gets ripped and mangled by the sharp plates in the metal arm. Toward the end, Bucky gets reckless enough to pull the knife he stole from the palace kitchens—it's for self-defense, okay, and he feels naked without _some_ kind of weapon—and hurls it fast enough to pin that stupid cape to a wall panel.

T'Challa twists like a mongoose, yanks the knife out, and hurls it back. It parts Bucky's hair before slamming into the opposite wall.

Finally Bucky puts a foot wrong, and suddenly there's a knee in his back and he's slammed face-first into the mat, his arms and legs pinned, a single claw resting lightly on his right carotid artery.

He goes slack and waits. If this is some elaborate way of justifying his execution, he's been ready for ten months now. He closes his eyes and thinks of Steve.

Then T'Challa's weight shifts off him. After a moment, the king says, "Get up."

Bucky obeys.

T'Challa pulls his cat-eared hood off, revealing a pleased smirk. "Not bad," he says. "You've a few things to learn and plenty to teach."

Bucky just blinks at him.

"You have a new assignment," T'Challa tells him. "Speak to Okoye. Once a week, you will now train with the Dora Milaje. You will learn everything _they_ know and teach them everything _you_ know. I need you ready when the time comes."

"Ready for what?" Bucky asks.

T'Challa purses his lips. "Ultron," he says coolly, "achieved sentience approximately six weeks ahead of my predictions. The timetable is accelerating. If this keeps up, I will need you in the field before a year has passed. You'll want to be at your fighting best."

"What _for?_ " Bucky insists.

T'Challa arches his eyebrows. "Isn't it obvious? There's only one reason to keep a combat-ready James Barnes around. Steve Rogers is going to need someone to watch his back."

Bucky momentarily stops breathing. 

T'Challa laughs, claps him on the shoulder, and walks him back to his quarters.

*

A year. He has a year, maybe less. A year to become what he was always made to be—whatever Steve needs.

Bucky watches the news from Sokovia compulsively. Steve survives, which is less of a surprise than it should be thanks to T'Challa's creepy predictions, but more importantly the dumb punk does a shitload of interviews about the mission and about his second-generation Avengers Initiative. Bucky leaves noseprints on his laptop screen, checking every pixel of visible skin for signs of injuries. But Steve seems ... well, he looks okay. Not hurt. Not even sad. Grim, yes, when he's not actively charming reporters, the way he was always grim in war zones, but he looks functional. Normal. Not happy, but _okay_.

Bucky drinks it in like cold water after a twenty-mile march.

Okoye still hates him, but she's not stupid enough to pass up a chance to train her warriors against the Winter Soldier. And while there's not much they can teach him hand-to-hand, there are always new weapons to learn, new survival tricks. And mostly what he needs is someone to fight, over and over, to hone himself like a blade. They slam him into the training-room floor and hunt him through one of the jungle parks adjacent to the palace. They don't hold back. It's what he needs, and what their king has commanded.

The best part of the new assignment, though, is learning how much he _isn't_ the Winter Soldier anymore. He's still got the skills and the reflexes and a lot of the muscle memory, but it's definitely Sergeant Barnes doing the driving now. He's not the punch-happy wiseass he was in Brooklyn, cracking jokes after he puts an opponent on the ground, but he's not blank and hollow anymore, either. He finds himself planning his fights far ahead, reading his opponents for hints, but also admiring the curve of Okoye's hip as she twists to kick him in the gut, and longing for a beer after a hard workout. He is quiet and self-contained, but very, _very_ human still. Like he was during the war, if he remembers that right. He vaguely recalls the feeling of being a broken vase, inexpertly glued back together but holding strong for all that because Steve needed him watertight. He can live a long time that way, he thinks. Maybe the rest of his life.

Maybe long enough for whatever Steve will need a year from now.

By Bucky's second Christmas in Wakanda, Okoye has smiled at him twice after training. He spends the holiday, on T'Challa's orders, with a small group of American and European expats in the city. They all seem to know each other but have no trouble accepting a quiet newcomer who smiles at their jokes and talks about nothing but his work with the prosthetics team at the King T'Chaka Foundation. There's far too much alcohol at the gathering, and while Bucky discovers he can't get drunk any more than Steve can, one of the women has no such problem and Bucky ends up getting kissed tipsily under some mistletoe. With tongues, even, and isn't _that_ an interesting surprise. It's pretty great, especially since he can't remember the last time anybody kissed him for a happy reason. Maybe it's never happened before.

The new year rolls around, and the news turns dark. Bucky spends his non-training hours watching footage of hearings at the U.N. and various national legislatures. He tries to follow the arguments, parse the rhetoric, but he doesn't quite have the right kind of brain for it. Maybe he never did. Or maybe they're just not making sense, maybe the world's gone crazy.

Steve speaks at a lot of hearings. So does Tony Stark. Steve doesn't get listened to nearly enough, judging by the votes. If people aren't listening to Steve, the world is definitely crazy.

Tea with T'Challa continues to be a weekly event, but the king refuses to discuss world events beyond a very basic explanation of anything Bucky _really_ doesn't understand.

"Are you keeping me in the dark?" Bucky demands, one afternoon in March.

"Yes," T'Challa replies. "It's all very complex and, quite honestly, most of it will cause you needless pain if you do happen to understand. So I am telling you only what you need to know to repay your debt to Wakanda when the time comes. As that payment will involve very little beyond meeting and protecting Steve Rogers, your need for information is similarly limited."

Bucky considers arguing, but T'Challa, as always, has a point. As long as he can go back to looking out for Steve, he really _doesn't_ care what the European Union is up to.

*

Eleven months after Sokovia, the tablet wakes him up again. It's not Steve this time, or not _only_ Steve.

Bucky doesn't need to see behind the creepy skull-face mask to know who blew up the infectious-disease research facility. He doesn't need to hear the sneering voice on the grainy YouTube manifesto. He _knows_.

Full credit to Dr. Bauchau; Bucky doesn't cower at the sight and sound of one of his primary torturers. He doesn't even flinch. Okay, he grins a little whenever CNN replays the clip of Steve punching Rumlow so hard the asshole goes flying, but that's not personal or anything. He's pretty sure everyone who's not Hydra enjoys seeing _that_. It's better than a video of a kitten falling off a table. It's go hilarity _and_ cosmic justice.

He has a session with Dr. Bauchau that afternoon, in fact, and talks excitedly about the footage.

"What part did you like best?" the doctor asks him.

Bucky thinks about that for a moment, and then says slowly, "The paddy wagon. The part where Steve pushed him into the van to haul him off to detention. Because it was great seeing the bastard get punched an' all, but what I really liked was knowing he wasn't gonna be able to hurt anyone for a while."

"Including you?"

Bucky frowns and thinks of a sliver of video footage T'Challa gave him: Steve, in an elevator at the Triskelion shortly before he met the Winter Soldier on the bridge. His own men turning on him, producing shackles and shock-sticks and the means to bring him down. And Rumlow, Steve's nominal second-in-command, had led them. Bucky remembers the misery on Steve's face as he stood over the unconscious bodies at the end of the fight.

"Not just me," he says. 

Dr. Bauchau smiles.

The rest of the session goes well, and Bucky stops his cab at a corner shop long enough for him to slip in and buy a couple of bottles of good beer. He's absolutely certain by now that he can't get drunk, but Rumlow getting punched and thrown in a paddy wagon is worth celebrating.

He knows when he steps into his apartment that he's not alone.

"It's me," T'Challa calls from the kitchen before Bucky can slip into combat mode. Ever since he began training with Okoye, his fight-or-flight reflexes have been steadily eliminating _flight_ from his menu of options.

"Do the people of Wakanda know their king is a creep?" Bucky asks, sauntering into the dark kitchen with the beer. No point in hiding it now, and it's not like T'Challa should be surprised. Bucky was in the infantry, after all.

"I believe that information is still classified." T'Challa is standing in front of Bucky's open fridge, the light from inside casting a spooky glow on the front of his suit. "Your diet is appalling. I don't know what half these things are."

"Grocery day's tomorrow," Bucky explains. Which T'Challa should know, since Bucky uses the palace purse to stock the fridge and the king seems to like micromanaging him. Bucky's pretty sure he buys only half the vegetables he finds in the crisper drawer.

"What is this?" T'Challa holds up a jar.

"Pickles. They're a New York thing." Bucky holds out a bottle. "Beer? Room temperature an' everything."

T'Challa smiles, replaces the pickles, and accepts the gift. They open their bottles and take simultaneous swallows. Bucky makes a face. 

"Agh. Warm beer."

"Philistine," T'Challa says, and sounds more than usually British.

"So," Bucky says, swallowing with a grimace, "no tea."

"No."

"And I just handed _you_ a drink."

"You did."

"So." Bucky lets his eyes narrow very slightly. "This ain't a social call."

"No." T'Challa took a long, meditative sip of beer. "It's time."

Bucky's breath catches. "Time for ...?"

"Time to pay your debt to Wakanda." T'Challa shoots him a sidelong glance. "Have you ever been to Berlin?"

*

The news comes in while they're in flight.

"That man," T'Challa remarks, "is insufferable."

Bucky straightens his spine and looks away from the TV. Between the events in Sokovia and the rise of unaffiliated wild-card metahumans—good God, one of them unleashed a giant _ant_ in San Francisco, how weird can you _get_ —and now Steve slugging it out with a super-terrorist in a populated area, the momentum is irreversible. It's been barely a day since the Accords were signed, placing all metahumans under the jurisdiction of the Avengers Initiative, while Bucky was replaying the footage of Rumlow getting his.

Now it's breaking that Steve has resigned from the Avengers, and fallen off the grid.

Bucky is trying not to panic. He's trying _so hard_. He's hardly broken anything, just a chair and a half-dozen pens.

_Steve._

"What do you want me to do?" he asks. 

"Stick to the plan," T'Challa replies. "My sources indicate that Captain Rogers and Mister Wilson are in Germany, following a lead."

"A lead on ...?"

"You, of course."

Bucky goes still. "So that's it," he says softly. "I'm bait."

"That has always been the plan, yes." T'Challa inclines his head. "Anyone with even a cursory familiarity with Captain Rogers' history and character can see that you are his primary weakness. He will walk into any danger, run any risk, on your behalf."

"And what do you have in mind?" Bucky asks.

T'Challa raises both hands. "Nothing you will find objectionable. After all, he is _your_ weakness, too. You've shown a remarkable willingness to assist me, Mister Barnes, but I think that compliance would abruptly disappear if I were to ask you to do anything that harmed Steve Rogers."

"You're right there," Bucky tells him.

"Just so. Fortunately for us both, I don't need to hurt him. I only need to talk to him. Your task is to deliver an invitation to a private meeting at the Wakandan embassy, and to grant him safe passage to that meeting, should he choose to attend. After that, your obligation ceases. You're free."

Bucky arches an eyebrow in imitation of T'Challa's favorite expression. "Seems like a lot of effort to go to just to invite the guy for tea. Why all the effort? Why _two years_?"

T'Challa smiles. "I would have waited ten if I'd had to, but your friend moves fast. A good king thinks two steps ahead of his enemies and three ahead of his friends, so it's perhaps not such a surprise that I knew he'd come to this. As for why I spent two years on you ... partly, it's because I knew I would need an introduction. Diplomacy requires a modicum of trust. There is no one he trusts more than you. A healthy, mentally stable James Barnes will do more to establish my good faith than any amount of public charity work or political promises."

"Partly," Bucky repeats. "What's the other part?"

The smile softens a little. "The other part," the king says, "it's because I _wanted_ to help you. We have something in common, and it's rare to meet another member of that particular society."

Bucky frowns for a moment, and then guesses: "The Lindy?"

"Ha! No." T'Challa cocks his head, and for a moment his brown eyes are almost golden, and Bucky could believe the pupils are slits. There really _is_ something feline about the guy. "You and I, we both know what it is like to love a foolish thing bent on its own destruction. To protect it at the cost of our lives. That is not a common experience. But I realized the first time I heard you speak about Steve Rogers that there was, perhaps, not so much difference between some men and some nations."

Bucky needs a few seconds to suss that out before he says, "You're tellin' me Wakanda likes to start dumbass fights in alleyways?"

"Ha. In a manner of speaking, yes."

*

"This seems ... excessive," Bucky remarks, gazing at the industrial roll press in the basement of a Berlin warehouse.

"Best we could do on short notice," T'Challa replies. "It is imperative that your distress be as real as possible in order to motivate him to come. Real confinement, real vulnerability." He shoots Bucky a sideways glance. "I am sorry."

Bucky swallows hard and gives himself a shake. "No. I said I'd do it, and I will. No offense to your hospitality, but I wanna go home."

"I quite understand. Very well—crouch down, and place your left arm on the plate."

Bucky obeys, forcing himself to stay still and outwardly calm as T'Challa cranks the press into position. He wouldn't trust anyone else to do this, except maybe Steve. The plates on the arm creak and bend. Sensors light up all along it, triggering pain signals all over his body in the all-over burn he's come to associate with impending damage to his arm.

"A—aaaah!" he cries. "Stop, stop!"

The pressure freezes.

"That—that's enough," Bucky pants. "Can't get out, I don't think. Please, no more. It—it hurts." His eyes are embarrassingly wet.

T'Challa locks the press and crouches down in front of him, touching the side of Bucky's face to help him focus. "I'm sorry," he says again, sounding oddly sincere.

"'Sokay," Bucky wheezes. "Had—worse." Maybe he has, but he couldn't remember it at the moment. Damn neural interface. _Oh God everything hurts ..._

"Are you ready for the second step?"

Bucky can't quite form the words, so he just nods. If anything, it's a kindness now.

T'Challa takes a moment to stroke Bucky's hair back from his face. Bucky leans into the touch, starved for reassurance. He rests his head against T'Challa's hand, closing his eyes as he leans toward the press and exposes the right side of his neck.

He doesn't see the syringe, but he feels the needle slide in, smooth and sharp. The sedative creeps in with it, cold and sickening, the one that took them days to formulate in the Queen N'Yami when they had to keep him under. Bucky can't suppress the frightened whimper that becomes a soft moan as his mind fogs over and he starts to drift.

"Your debt," T'Challa says from a thousand miles away, "is paid." 

Bucky feels strong fingers smoothing down his hair. There's a sense of floating as he sags more and more into the vise grip holding him. He doesn't notice when he passes out.

The next thing he sees is the sharp, worried face of Sam Wilson peering into his. He moans and closes his eyes again.

Drift.

After that, it's a voice: "Hey, Cap."

Drift.

A while later, hands cup his face, lifting his head gently so that his eyes flutter very slightly open. Through his eyelashes, he gets his first look at Steve.

He can't speak. He just whines.

"Oh, God, Buck," Steve whispers. He sounds like he's going to cry. Looks like it too. 

Bucky closes his eyes and leans into Steve's touch. He ends up with his forehead resting on Steve's shoulder. He breathes in the warm scent that means home to him—sunshine, vanilla, lemons and sweat. His eyes are leaking again, but he doesn't care.

"Easy, Buck," Steve says. A warm hand rubs the chilly, sore muscles of Bucky's back. "It's gonna be okay. You just take it easy, pal. Everything's gonna be okay now." 

It's all he wants to hear. He lets the darkness take him again. At least this time, it's warm.

When he comes around, he's in a car, slumped over on his side with his face on something warm. He opens his eyes slowly, not sure what he's going to find this time.

The warmth against his cheek is a thigh the size of a tree trunk. The smell of home hangs all around him. He's got his head in Steve's lap, and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. 

"You with us, Buck?" Steve asks softly, carding fingers through Bucky's hair. 

Bucky grunts and pushes against Steve's hand, squirming awkwardly as he tries to sit up. After a moment, Steve gets the idea and helps.

"Take it easy," he advises as Bucky's head lolls against his shoulder.

"He waking up?" a voice from the driver's seat asks. 

"I think so," Steve replies. "Still looks kinda groggy, though. Shh, Buck, it's okay, you're safe."

"Steve," Bucky mumbles. At least he's got that word now. 

"Yeah, Buck." Steve's voice is thick. He sounds on the brink of tears.

That's not right. Steve shouldn't be crying. He should be happy. Bucky's missed him so much; is Steve sad that Bucky's come home?

"'m sorry," Bucky slurs.

"It's okay, it's okay, you didn't do anything wrong."

Bucky's pretty sure that's not right, but okay. Whatever Steve says. He burrows down into Steve's shoulder, tries to get comfortable. _Home. Home. I'm home._

Then he remembers.

"Pocket," he murmurs.

Steve shifts underneath him. "Whatcha say, pal?"

"Pocket," Bucky repeats, and begins wriggling to expose the right front pocket of his jeans. Steve catches on quick, pulls back the blanket and slides a hand in.

The folded piece of paper with T'Challa's message on it is a little bent, but otherwise undamaged. 

"What's this?" Steve asks, but Bucky's done his job and earned his nap. He drifts off with his head on Steve's shoulder and Steve's gentle fingers in his hair.

*

He wakes up sprawled on a motel bed. He knows it's a motel bed; there's a smell to motel rooms, and a texture to motel bedspreads, that he'll never forget after his years as an assassin and his months on the run. But he wakes up lying on his side, with his arms curled in front of him, which is ... interesting.

Maybe he should've read that note before putting it in his pocket.

"You awake now?"

Gingerly, Bucky sits up and rubs at his eyes with his human hand. "Yeah," he croaks. "Morning."

"It's about three p.m., actually," Steve tells him. He's sitting at a small table in the corner of the room, where he can keep an eye on both the bed and the door. The note is spread out on the tabletop, and his eyes are on Bucky. 

"Oh," Bucky says. "Afternoon?"

"So. Wakanda." Steve taps the note.

Now Bucky really wishes he'd read it. "Yeah."

"You were in _Wakanda_ for twenty-two months. Almost two years."

Bucky nods and looks down at the bedspread.

"And you didn't contact me, even though you were apparently completely safe, getting medical and psychiatric treatment." Steve's voice is stony. "Which, don't get me wrong, I'm glad you did, but I'm kinda pissed I didn't get so much as a _phone call_ when you were evidently with people who took care of you and know you so well that they can tell me not to put you down to sleep on your back because it makes you wake up with nightmares."

Bucky shrugs. "Well. It does."

"Not my point, Buck."

"Then what is?" Bucky lifts his eyes to Steve's. 

"My—?" Steve blinks. "Do you really not understand why I want to punch you in the face right now?"

"Fine. Go ahead." _I deserve it anyway._

"Bucky, I don't want to punch you!"

"Well, you can't have it both ways."

Steve snorts. "Buck—you—" He scrubs his hand over his face. "I was worried, you stupid jerk. I thought you were dead, or back with—you know. If you were safe, why couldn't you just tell me?"

Bucky pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his elbows on them. His left foot sinks into the mattress under the weight of his metal arm. "I promised," he says softly. "They found me, smuggled me there, and I woke up in a hospital. T'Challa, he said he'd look after me as long as I stayed there and didn't contact you. I was real sick, didn't have a choice."

"But you _stayed_ —"

"Because he kept his promise," Bucky interrupted. "I wasn't anybody you'd wanna be around back then, but—I'm better now. I remember you, I don't have any more seizures or hallucinations. I'm stable, which doesn't sound like much but it is, believe me. And it's because of him."

"He's using you, Buck."

"And I'm using him right back," Bucky replied honestly, thinking of multiple doctors and a woman in red. "I don't think either of us knows how _not_ to use people. But for now, our objectives kinda line up."

Steve looks stricken. "Bucky, you're not an objective. You're not a _thing._ "

"I know. T'Challa helped me figure that out." The dam breaks, and Bucky feels his face crumple. "I'm sorry, Steve. I wanted to—I tried—" He shakes his head. There aren't words for this. "I'm sorry. I'm just sorry." He buries his face in his knees. _Godammit, damn well breathe! Don't let him see you broken—_

A warm hand comes gently down on his back.

Bucky goes still, except for small, shuddering, involuntary noises that are definitely not sobs.

"Is this okay?" Steve asks. For a moment Bucky wants to giggle hysterically, because Steve sounds like one of the therapists, or one of the doctors. _I'm going to put my hand on your back, if that's all right. Little pinch, and then I'm done. May I touch your hand?_

Except _they_ were afraid of him, of what he might do if startled. Steve's never been scared of Bucky in his whole life; it's why he touched before he asked. Steve's not worried he'll get a metal fist in his throat. He's worried he'll cause Bucky pain.

_T'Challa must've really put a lot into that note._

Instead of answering, Bucky leans into Steve's touch. In a moment they're seated together on the bed, slumped into each other. Bucky's still mostly tucked up in his ball of misery, but Steve's arms are around him and their faces are burrowed in each other's necks and _oh god he smells like home how could I ever forget that smell_ and the shaking is getting worse, but that's not right, Bucky's not trembling any more than he was a minute ago—

Oh.

_Oh._

Bucky can recite Steve's powers in his head. Captain America can pick up a motorcycle with three showgirls on it. Captain America can go three days without sleeping. Captain America can walk through a TB ward without getting sick. Captain America can run a mile in two and a half minutes. Captain America ...

But Steve has powers, too.

Steve can weep in total silence.

Bucky slowly uncurls and drapes his arms around Steve's shoulders. They hang on each other, holding each other up, as Steve's tears soak the fabric of Bucky's shirt and Bucky tries not to snag his metal fingers on the cotton covering Steve's broad back. After a while, Bucky realizes he's saying something, soft and low.

_Hey._

_Shhhh._

_It's okay._

_You're okay._

_I'm here._

_I missed you too._

_I missed you too._

*

It's not easy to smuggle Captain America into the Wakandan embassy, but Bucky manages it. It's a trick he _couldn't_ have pulled off without Steve's cooperation, though. Yet another little way in which T'Challa's investment is paying off.

Steve is stone-faced when he sits down across from the king.

"I'll get right to the point," T'Challa says calmly, "as your friend has established my goodwill and credentials as much as possible. You are currently engaged in a rebellion against your government and most of the Western world. I am offering you and your comrades asylum and an operating base in my country, with a few conditions."

"Why?" Steve asks. 

"Briefly? Because I am the hereditary monarch of a small nation sitting on top of a mountain of the rarest metal on earth. Vibranium has a wide range of potential applications, many of them lethal. And for us, it is sacred. We cannot allow other nations to take it from us, and yet history shows that is precisely what happens to small countries with valuable resources. With the increasing spread of various globalizing technologies, we no longer have the option of remaining a hermit nation. We have to join the world, and that means dealing with the other players on the playground. By my projections, Wakanda will be embroiled in an existential war within the decade. I want to prevent that war."

"What's that got to do with me?" Steve reaches across to grip Bucky's shoulder. "Or my friend, whom you decided to hold hostage?"

Bucky winces.

T'Challa doesn't take issue with the description, merely arches an eyebrow and continues. "I propose to make Wakanda a haven for superhumans who refuse to register with their governments or the United Nations. I will welcome any powered individual without a criminal record, and will personally hear the case of any applicant with a conviction history. Those who wish to live quiet, civilian lives will be permitted to do so. Those who prefer to use their powers for good as they define it will _also_ be permitted to do so, within Wakandan law."

"How does that help you?" Steve asks suspiciously.

T'Challa smiles. "Tell me, Captain Rogers. Would _you_ invade a country with a large and loyal superhuman population? Knowing that your soldiers might turn any corner and encounter a tiny Chinese grandmother who can throw city buses at them?"

"It wouldn't be my first choice," Steve admits.

"Precisely. My offer comes with only two conditions. First, that the resident superhumans agree to defend Wakanda in the event of an invasion, just as its citizens do. Defense only, I must stress—no one may be drafted into offensive military operations."

"And the other condition?"

"You, Captain. I want you to lead the community you will build. Because as useful as the threat of the Chinese grandmother may be, the certainty of your moral authority is far more valuable. No soldier wants to face the grandmother, and no politician wants to oppose Captain America."

"I think a majority of the U.S. Senate would disagree with you right about now," Steve says dryly."

"Perhaps. But a lot of prime ministers wouldn't. The right side of history is generally the side you're on, Captain. I want Wakanda on that side, and if the mountain won't come to Mohammed ..." He shrugs eloquently.

Steve snorts. "You kept Bucky as a pet for two years, lied and manipulated God knows how many people ... because you want to be the _good guy?_ "

"You should see the bad ones. And incidentally, Captain, you will have unfettered access to me. I value your morality even if I don't precisely share it. If ever you decide my policies are not to your liking, I invite you to discuss the matter like civilized men. It's not an offer you'll get anywhere else."

Steve sits back in his chair, scowling at the king. He says nothing for nearly a full minute.

When he does, it's, "What about Bucky?"

"What about him?" T'Challa replies.

"You know damn well what. Your offer doesn't apply to him, not with the Winter Soldier's record dogging his heels. Or did you think I wouldn't notice?"

"I confess I wondered how long you'd take." T'Challa smiles.

"Well, cough up. I'm not taking any deal that doesn't include provisions for him. So let's hear your offer."

"There is no offer."

Now it's Steve's turn to cock an eyebrow. "Ballsy. Stupid, but ballsy." He stands up. "C'mon, Buck. You're paid up and we're outta here."

Bucky closes his eyes, tenses his shoulders, and says, "No."

He can _feel_ Steve freeze.

Bucky opens his eyes and looks at T'Challa. "Quit being an asshole and just tell him, wouldja?"

T'Challa gazes fondly at him for a moment, then chuckles and looks up at Steve. "There's no offer," he repeats, "because Mister Barnes doesn't need one. He is already welcome in Wakanda whenever he likes, as a visitor or a resident. He has a permanent standing invitation as a personal friend of the king." He shows his teeth. "And Wakanda has signed no extradition treaties."

All the air leaves Steve's lungs in a whoosh. He looks like he's been punched.

"Siddown," Bucky drawls, "before you keel over."

Steve sits. "You're serious?" he demands of T'Challa. "He's—he's really _safe_ in your country?"

"Safer than you are in Brooklyn, certainly. And legally untouchable; I can show you the paperwork. He has been offered Wakandan citizenship, if he ever decides to take it. Mister Barnes has a Wakandan passport as well—the only legitimate passport he currently owns."

Bucky reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out a little green booklet.

Steve looks from the passport to Bucky's expression, exhausted but hopeful, and then to T'Challa's calm face.

"Okay," he says. "I'm listening."

Bucky lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and sidles closer to Steve. He feels Steve's muscles tense as their shoulders brush, but when he rests his head on Steve's shoulder, he feels the tension ebb out of them both like the tide going out as T'Challa lays out the specifics of a new Wakandan-based Avengers Initiative.

Bucky doesn't listen to the details. He doesn't need to. He's got everything he needs now.

It's taken a long damn time, but he's finally home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Yes, it is my headcanon that T'Challa picked up British drinking culture along with tea culture. Hence the warm beer. Bucky is a true red-blooded American boy and does not stand for any of that shit.
> 
> 2\. Obviously, Bucky's reaction to T'Challa's catsuit (it is a CEREMONIAL COSTUME, okay? Wearing it is his JOB) is evidence that he remembers "Star-Spangled Man With A Plan."
> 
> 3\. I am deliberately vague on everything to do with the actual events of Civil War, but if we don't get to see Rumlow punched hard enough to go flying and tossed into some kind of prisoner transport, I may demand my money back.
> 
> 4\. I have no plans for a sequel, but if anybody wants to use my idea for why T'Challa is interested in Steve, feel free.
> 
> 5\. I am on Tumblr! I am onethingconstant there. Come follow me for Marvel goodness and the fight against fascism.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact: Queen N'Yame was T'Challa's mother. She died giving birth to him. I made up the hospital as sort of a sadder version of the Lady Sybil hospital in Discworld.
> 
> Un-Fun Fact: Marvel apparently has never given the capital city of Wakanda a name. Friggin' Latveria can have friggin' Doomstadt, but the capital of Wakanda is ... Wakanda. So you won't be hearing a name here. I'm comfortable naming hospitals after dead characters, but making up city names in totally unfamiliar language groups is a bit out of my wheelhouse.


End file.
